Emily's Birthday and new skills

Emily turned 11 years old yesterday. She's been attending gym school since January 3rd and tells me that she's finally getting back her upper body strength. She's thrilled at learning all the new skills. She's finally learning her bar routine while using her grips which is something that I and her previous coach went rounds about more than once. I don't know anything about Gymnastics, but it was really obvious that my daughter was not getting the training or conditioning she needed to perform a compulsory bar or vault routine. Emily's been at a few gyms by now. She started out at Gymnastics Unlimited in Thornton in their tots tumbling class. She then spent some time at 5280 Gymnastics in recreational and pre-team. Emily spent her Level 4 and 5 compulsories at TIGAR Gymnastics. She had a great Level 4 record with 2 All Around Wins and did very well on Floor and Beam in Level 5. The difference in her training at Level 5 seemed to be attributed to a coaching change for Bars and Vault during her Level 5 season. She's now in the Gym/School Program at Gymnastika and is spending 6 days a week there. Emily still holds the Olympic dream in her mindset. She's 11 and so far has been truly dedicating herself to this sport for the last four years. Everybody keeps telling me that she's a "natural gymnast", whatever that means. I just know it's all a crap shoot at this point, but I still have to support her as her parent. If she continues to fight through the pain, strain and training she will succeed. There is no doubt in my mind. I pray every day that she remains injury free and I can direct her into a stable future once her gymnastics dreams are fulfilled. I keep on looking at the business models for this industry - I don't see a great big profit margin in any of it, unless you're cranking out cookie cutter Olympians like WOGA or the Karolys. I believe in Gay and Alexi and I know their training is top notch. They have produced a few National Team and Olympic Team members in their own right. Time to start a non-profit for this little gym and these small teams. These girls are going places and they'll need the funding to pull it off. I need to figure out how to get the community support behind this little Gym Group. TOPS training, which was a big push at TIGAR - I was told that program was started so that the young talent wouldn't get lost in a sea of poor coaching. That kind of made alot of sense to me. Well two days until Tim Tebow and the Broncos meet up in another playoff game. Go BRONCOS!